A cold wind came at dawn, from the south, dragging sharp showers in its trail. If the Armada was flushed out of Calais, it would have to drive north and leave England behind.
Gresham's body shuddered involuntarily, and once again he cursed it for its refusal to obey orders. Something terrible was going to happen here, he knew. A deep instinct in him sensed that somehow in this place and in this time the fate of nations would be decided, the prophecy of Regiomontanus come to pass. Or was it simply the cold, the hunger of a young stomach and the insatiable desire, like a terrible itch always just out of reach, to drink gallons of cold, clear water and let it rinse the salt off his red-raw skin?
The translator had to descend into the gloom to find Gresham. For want of anything to do, he had gone to watch the carpenters plugging the holes in the side of the San Martin. To their amusement he had got himself holding a block of wood against a wooden plug, with a huge Spaniard ramming the plug home with savage blows of a mallet.
'Don Rodrigo Tello de Guzman's pinnace will be alongside in minutes,' was the whispered message. It was he who had been sent with messages to Parma a fortnight ago. 'You have met the Duke of Parma more recently than any except Don Rodrigo. The Duke wishes you to hear his report.'
From the moment Don Rodrigo stepped on board they knew something was wrong. He was both excited and flustered, a sweat on his brow, a nervousness in his manner, almost an irritation. Then it happened, only briefly, for a moment. As it had happened once before to Gresham. The world and time froze, yet there was still movement and sound in it. Don Rodrigo was poised, fixed in a clumsy half-bow as he leaned forward, his startled eyes fixed on the fractured and smashed upperworks of the flagship. The Duke stood on the deck where he had seemed to take root since they had sighted England, frozen also in a stiff, formal greeting. The rigging flapped and slapped against the tall masts, the suck and plop of the waves still soothed. The rhythmic blow of the mallet suddenly took on the timbre of a funereal bell, and all the while the soggy clanking and tired hiss of the pumps reached the upper decks. Then the people and their surroundings became synchronised again, and moved in harmony. Don Rodrigo was troubled, his eyes shifting to Gresham, Sidonia's advisers, those on the deck. The news he brought could not be communicated on the open deck. It took an age for the Duke to realise the problem.
'We shall move into my cabin,' he said finally, nodding to Gresham and several of the Spanish commanders to follow him.
There were perhaps ten of them in the great cabin, and Gresham was reminded of the meeting in Drake's cabin off Cadiz. Three times as many could have fitted into the Duke's centre of operations. The stern windows were intact, remarkably, or had been mended, and they let in the brisk but almost wintery light of Calais. Down one side there was a neat hole where an English ball had pierced the hull, two or three feet on a jagged wrench of splintered timber where a heavier ball, at the end of its trajectory, had smashed into the timbers. One or other of the hits had reduced the top of a fine, carved chest to splinters.
'My Lord,' said Don Rodrigo. 'The Duke of Parma sends his warmest greetings. He is delighted that the power and might of Spain has reached thus far, feels that England is already trembling beneath the feet of the true Faith.' Then Rodrigo stumbled, fell silent.
'And?' said the Duke, prompting him gently, 'And our rendezvous?'
The translator seemed to think he had a duty, and was whispering the translation into Gresham's ear.
'The Duke… the Duke…' Rodrigo was gulping, finding difficulty with his words. 'The Duke states that his troops will be ready for their sortie within six days.'
Spanish noblemen and senior commanders did not hiss or gasp in amazement and horror. Centuries of breeding, centuries that Henry Gresham envied with all his heart, forbade the outward display of such emotion. Instead there was a sudden silence of bodies as well as voices, as the men gathered there became immobile.
Six days? Six days for one hundred and twenty-eight ships to remain moored in a treacherous anchorage, nearly out of powder and shot, an ever-growing hostile fleet snapping at them?
'My Lord…' Rodrigo was speaking like a woman in childbirth. The pain was extraordinary, the burden unavoidable. He looked round the room, eyes stopping briefly at Gresham and Mannion, moving on. Apart from their strange presence, the men gathered around their commander were true Spaniards. Most had birth and breeding, and even those who had less of either commodity had experience with which to compensate. 'My Lord,' there was a new strength in his voice, 'when I left Dunkirk a day ago I saw no sign of his troops. The Duke has not been seen at Dunkirk, nor at Nieuport, this many a day. He moves between Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges, with no seeming pattern in his movements.'
Well, thought Gresham, it's good to know other people had the same problem as we did on our visit.
'The vessels I saw in both places were paltry things, few in number, rotten in construction. They had no stores loaded, not even sails or oars.' He paused, not for effect, but because the enormity of what he had seen he had only now allowed to hit him. 'My Lord, the troops are not ready! The boats, if they exist, are not ready. It is as if my Lord the Duke of Parma had only today received notice that your vessels were leaving Lisbon.'
'How long?' asked the Duke quietly, gently.
Rodrigo looked around the cabin walls, almost in despair, hating what he knew he had to say. 'For the troops to embark… My Lord, it can only be my opinion. I may be wrong. A fortnight. Two weeks. At least Possibly more. Even if the transports exist, will bear the weight of men. A fortnight to gather the men and load the stores. I say nothing about crossing the shallows, reaching us in the face of the damned Dutch and their fly-boats.'
'Thank you,' said the Duke. 'You have done well.' He smiled at Don Rodrigo, reaching forward for the package that he now knew would contain the fulsome welcome of the Duke of Parma and a meaningless promise to assemble an army. An army that should already have been assembled and waiting. The smile was addressed to all those in the cabin now, understanding, forgiving. 'Leave me now. And you, Rodrigo, report to my steward and claim from him some of my very best wine. And then offer it to my friends and fellow officers here. We shall reassemble in the turning of a glass. Please leave me to consider the Duke of Parma's letter.'
The Duke's eyes paused on Gresham's, commanding him to remain. The Spanish officers and nobles bowed formally, unconcerned about who remained, not realising the figure and his manservant who remained behind. There was a strange glint in their eyes, Gresham realised. These were not fools, these men. They knew. The Duke broke the ornate seal on the letter, as if Gresham was not there. He read quietly, occasionally holding the paper up to the light coming through the stern windows where he found a particular line hard to decipher. Then he turned to Gresham.
'I have waited so long for these words, and now I have them, that is all they are. Words.'
'The words are not… helpful?' asked Gresham.
‘I need an army, an army of trained men to take over England. I need powder, and shot. And I have… words.'
The Duke placed the letter from Parma on the ornate table, and stood up, stiff, clearly in pain. He turned to gaze out of the stern windows, onto the ornately decorated stern walk.
'A fortnight? Perhaps. If I could sail up the Scheldt, sail up even to Dunkirk, present my fleet before that army and shame them into embarkation. Yet with no pilots, and no promise of pilots, my ocean-going fleet can make no such inland journey. I must await the Duke's army here, in a treacherous anchorage off a neutral country. And I know that the army will not come, as I know my fleet's survival in this place will be lucky to last one night.' The Duke's face seemed to have sunk in on itself, his eyes hollows in his face, the tightness of his skin almost a death mask. 'Well, my dreaming young Englishman? Am I right?'